thirteen degrees

a short story about the woman on the wall

the painting on the wall to my left is crooked. thirteen degrees off from where it was yesterday, according to the plastic yellow level i keep in the second-to-top drawer by the sink. it lives alongside an assortment of random objects that never found a proper home in my otherwise meticulous organization system.

i could keep it in the toolbox in the linen closet, but i like having it close. i find myself using it pretty frequently.

anyways, he came home late last night and must have bumped it in the darkness of the dining room. i’d ask if he remembers, but he’s not home. and i doubt he’d even know which painting i’m referring to.

i remember the day i bought it. scorching summer morning. long beach flea market, my favorite one in southern california. i’d been wandering for hours through rows of old postcards, tiffany lamps, rusted trinkets, and questionably functioning film cameras when i saw her across the way: a veiled woman made up of oil pastels.

her eyes were half-lidded, looking slightly to the right. cheeks pink with blush. lips painted the hue of red that feels both bold and modest. like she wants to be admired but not enough to cause a stir. her jet black bob was curled under at the ends, neat and intentional, like she’s been styling it that way for years. she wore an orange textured kimono, or maybe a robe. i couldn’t tell. i still can’t. it doesn’t matter.

what really struck me was the sadness i felt as i stood there studying her. not obvious or theatrical, but the kind that hums beneath the surface. only visible if you know where to look. i couldn’t help but think the artist’s intention with the veil was to conceal some truth, establish mystery. but it only made it louder. there was a silent understanding between us. i wanted her to look straight at me with those distant eyes. tell me what she was thinking. what she was hiding. i think i already knew.

i asked the seller for the price. he said she’d been hanging there for months. “whatever you think she’s worth,” he told me.

worth. like it was mine to decide. like it ever is.

i venmo’d him three hundred dollars without hesitation, after haggling with another vendor twenty minutes earlier over an eight-dollar incense holder i didn’t need, and took her home.

she became the centerpiece of our dining room. i insisted on it. he didn’t have much say in the matter, though he rarely had much to say at all.

as she hung there, her presence deepened. charged the room in ways i can’t explain.

she watched over us during quiet breakfasts, slow dinners, disagreements, “breakthroughs,” reflections, and personal revelations. conversations that lasted long enough for the wicker chairs beneath us to brand patterns into our skin.

and somewhere between the listening, the crying, the understanding, the forgiving, the compromising, the quiet disappearing, my eyes always gravitated to her averted gaze. like she was the only one who noticed when i left the room, without moving an inch.

this morning, i caught her staring at me.

P.S. this is the first short story i’ve ever written. part fiction, part nonfiction. mostly just an experiment. it was fun. thanks for reading!